When Gamer Rage Gets Harnessed to Discipline Workers

Sam [Dan's brother and Rockstar president] and I talk about this a lot, and
it's that games are still magical. It's like they're made by elves… You
turn on the screen and it's just this world that exists on TV. I think you
gain something by not knowing how they're made.

There's no real reason why workers and consumers should have different interests
or be at odds with one another. It sounds absurd when you think about it: many
workers take a great deal of pride and personal satisfaction from making games
that players love to play, and without workers there would be no games for
players to enjoy in the first place. Unfortunately, many players don't know
the conditions under which games are made (in large part because bosses
prevent workers from talking about it publicly!). They are also encouraged to
see themselves as having a special relationship with a brand, a company, or a
product, rather than with the real people making the games they play. This
dynamic encourages consumers to blame workers when things go wrong, and benefits
owners. Throwing workers under the bus directs negative attention away from the
bosses, even when they're the ones responsible for making decisions that hurt
consumers. It can also serve as an intimidation tactic that can be used to
discipline workers.

We're unfortunately all too familiar with the way a small but extremely vocal
minority of consumers take entitlement to the next level in their relationship
to developers. As more game workers speak up about working conditions in the
industry, we've also seen hate-driven harassment campaigns appearing in
response. Often this harassment specifically targets marginalized workers who
are simply trying to participate in the creative direction of the games they
build and speak to their own struggles, backgrounds, and experiences. Individual
workers become singled out and targeted by an online mob of entitled consumers
who don't want to see the game industry become more welcoming to new voices and
who scapegoat them for everything they believe is wrong with games.

Giving in to demands from angry, reactionary gamers is a convenient excuse for
bosses to get rid of "troublesome" workers — like, say, someone speaking out
about sexism and racism in their workplace. Many game industry bosses see
their priorities as being more in line with the harassers than with the people
who work for them. (THQ Nordic recently reminded us of this by choosing to do
a marketing Q&A on 8chan, a website known for harboring Nazis, enabling the
spread of child porn, and playing a leading role in massive hate campaigns
targeted against marginalized game workers.)

In these situations, management will often pretend to have the best interests of
workers in mind even as they systematically yield to the slightest strain and
validate gamer entitlement. This can lead to bosses implementing new ways of
controlling, suppressing, and disciplining their workers, all under the guise of
"protecting them" from such harassment. (Protecting from what? Getting fired
for standing up to harassment? Some protection racket that is!) After ArenaNet
president Mike O'Brien fired developers Price and Fries at the demand of an
online mob — for committing the egregious offence of pushing back against the
misogyny women game designers face in the industry — many employers jumped on
the occasion to introduce new social media policies restricting what their
employees are allowed to express online outside of working hours. These policies
effectively make workers responsible for being a 24/7 brand ambassador on top of
their regular job — and for no additional compensation, to boot. (What a
bargain!)

In her article from October on the topic, "Worse than Scabs: Gamer Rage as
Anti-Union Violence", Lana Polansky
writes
:

"As long as gamers direct their grievances at individual workers,
videogame companies understand that they can use that dynamic to shield
themselves from community criticism while using it as leverage in
internal conflicts with employees. This has, for a long time, represented a
win-win for companies, ensuring not just the PR victory with their fans, but
also a deeply suppressed and compliant workforce, and an opaque shroud over
the industry's internal workings. That shroud, however, seems to be starting
to clear."

This tactic was deployed in 2016 when studio owners at Activision, EA, Disney,
Warner Bros, Take-Two, and others launched a
website
and video explicitly targeting a gamer audience that demonized the SAG-AFTRA
voice actors' union. At the time, union members were demanding, among other
things, better safety standards for voice strain and risks associated with stunt
coordination (for motion capture), an improved structure for bonus payments,
better transparency, and employment mobility. In a blatant effort to direct
fan rage at the workers, bosses argued that these demands would somehow lead
to worse games for consumers.

Executives ultimately answer to shareholders and investors, and thus to the
profit motive. They'll give in to the cry of a vocal, angry minority of
perceived fans even if the consequence in the long-term is a worse game. We
can't rely on them to have our backs on this front: we need to have each
other's. The best way to resist harassment — and the summary, mob-driven
firings that so often seem to follow — is by organizing. And if gamers really
want to see better games, they should focus their attention on the bosses and
the conditions employees are forced to work under, not on individual
vulnerable employees that are easily scapegoated. But for this to mean anything,
the conversation also needs to go beyond a simplistic call to "vote with your
dollars" and to buy more from the "good companies" and less from the bad ones.
Player support for unionization will go much farther towards crafting a better
industry.